Vignettes of the Senses
by Miroslav
Summary: Sometimes, a person's life can revolve around a single sense taste, touch, sight, smell, or hearing. Slash, various pairings
1. Chapter 1

(Author's Notes: This will be the first chapter of five, all revolving around a single sense, whether it's taste, touch, hearing, smell, or sight. They will also all revolve around slash, so be forewarned. There will be a different pairing per chapter.

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Half-Blood Prince

Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Theodore Nott.)

_**Taste**_

When Draco kissed Theodore Nott, the other boy tasted of strawberries. Later, when he asked Theodore about it, the boy had smiled and said simply, "I like strawberries." That was how Theodore _was_ -- things were always that simple and, well, obvious to him. It was obvious that he'd taste like strawberries since he liked strawberries, just like it was obvious that Draco would taste like spit and chocolate because Draco was always nibbling on sweets.

It was also obvious that Draco would punch him in the stomach for saying he tasted like spit, was mentioned in a chagrined tone after Draco had punched him.

One thing Draco loved about Theodore was the various tastes that somehow followed him around. Usually Theodore tasted like strawberries, but sometimes he tasted like pumpkin juice or Butterbeer, and after the first time they'd had sex, Theodore had tasted like sweat and a sweetness Draco couldn't name.

He pestered Theodore for weeks about that sweetness, but Theodore couldn't tell him what the taste was, and so eventually he'd given up. Even during the war, in the middle of a battle, that taste would suddenly flare on his lips, and he would find himself distracted and smiling lopsidedly, even as he dodged the latest curse hurled his way.

And then Theodore was caught and imprisoned by that damn Order of the Phoenix, and Draco lost the sense of taste. Something sweet, something bitter, something rancid…he couldn't tell the difference. He found he didn't care. Taste was only important when he was kissing Theodore and seeing if the other Slytherin tasted like strawberries or licorice.

When they rescued him, Theodore was skin and bones and shadows, with bruises in his eyes and a tremor in his smile. But as Draco cradled him, he gave a whispery laugh and said, "Took you long enough." And when Draco smashed their mouths together, he just tasted salt and spit but that didn't matter because it was _Theodore_.

And when he pulled away and kissed Theodore tenderly on the cheek, Theodore leaned against him and said in a voice made rasping by disuse, "You taste like chocolate and spit."

"I like chocolate," said Draco simply, and smiled.

(Author's Notes: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Please remember to review!)


	2. Chapter 2

(Author's Notes: This will be thesecond chapter of five, all revolving around a single sense, whether it's taste, touch, hearing, smell, or sight. They will also all revolve around slash, so be forewarned. There will be a different pairing per chapter.

Rating: PG

Pairing: Harry Potter/Oliver Wood.)

_**Touch**_

Sometimes Harry just wanted someone to _touch_ him. The desire was like a heaviness that rested on his shoulders and weighed him down, crippling him as he yearned for just…one touch. A brush of a hand against his own…even the accidental collision of bodies in the hallway could suffice.

When Mrs. Weasley hugged him after Cedric's death, even while devastated by the fact that someone had _died _and it was all his fault, his skinny, awkward frame had rejoiced and _worshipped_ the feel of her form against his, the warmth of her body that had enveloped him. He savored the memory for months; in his darker moments, he took out the memory like some prize, setting it before him and remembering the way she had hugged him. The memory of Cho's kiss was cradled in the same manner, as was the feel of Ginny Weasley as he kissed and held her in sixth year, and the awkward hugs that a haunted Sirius Black had given him.

And then the war was on, and people who might've hugged him before, if he'd _asked_, were suddenly too afraid to touch, because touching meant people were real, and real people could die and never return. And the desire had gained weight and slumped his shoulders until people began asking if there was something wrong with his back, and it pressed down on his shoulders until he hobbled like an old man even as he fought and bled and fought in this vicious war.

Even bleeding, no one touched him. Not even the medi-witches. A mere press of a wand's tip to his wound and he was fine, perfectly healed, and off to the next battle where he'd bleed again. No one touched him, and the longing grew until one day on the battlefield, in the midst of a duel with Nott, he just…fell to his knees.

He didn't even notice when someone hexed Nott, too busy trying to shove off the weight of loneliness that perched upon his shoulders and had made his knees give out.

"Harry."

He kept pushing with shaking hands, certain that somehow he could knock the weight off and stand straight again. He had to, for when he fought Voldemort after all…a hero couldn't be a cripple--

"_Harry_."

And then, someone touched him. Fingers pressed against his cheek, callused and warm and _real_, and he blinked and looked up to stare into the face of a god named Oliver Wood.

"Oliver?"

Oliver smiled and hauled him to his feet. "C'mon, Harry, if you don't survive the war, the world's lost the best bloody Seeker ever!" Harry would have thought the burly Gryffindor was joking, had there not been a gleam of earnestness in his face. But then again, Oliver _would_ be concerned with Quidditch while there was a war going on.

For a moment, he kept staring, and then he half-leaned into the touch and managed a shaky laugh. "Already recruiting me for the Puddlemere United, Oliver?"

Oliver smiled crookedly. "Can't blame a bloke for trying." He stepped back, his hands leaving Harry's shoulders, and then stared when Harry instinctively stopped him. His smile shifted to a look of concern that Harry knew all too well. It was a look Hermione and Ron wore all the time now.

"Sorry," he found himself breathing, and to his horror and embarrassment he felt tears prickling his eyes. "It's just…so nice to feel…a touch." And then the tears were spilling down his face and he could only cling to Oliver's callused hands like they were a lifeline and he was a drowning man instead of the crippled, tired boy he knew he was.

Oliver just _looked_ at him for a long moment, and, despite the fact that there was a battle waging all around them, that Nott was cursing the Boy-Who-Lived and fumbling for a wand that Oliver had broken personally a few minutes earlier, he grabbed Harry and hugged him.

And Harry buried his face in the man's chest and felt the weight of yearning begin to dissolve as those steady, strong arms wrapped around him. Somehow this…touch enveloped his frame and pressed invisible hands to his back, straightening his spine. Somehow this touch burrowed deeper than the sensation of skin to skin and touched his heart, scattering all the longings and heaviness away and left him with a giddy sort of relief that came with weightlessness.

"Don't let go," he whispered.

Oliver rested his chin on Harry's head and smiled, ignoring the war that waged around them. "I won't."

(Author's Notes: I hope you enjoyed this chapter!)


End file.
